Offender

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT OFFENDER - PAGE 5

One of the nation's most aggressive attempts to limit the mobility of convicted sex offenders was struck down Wednesday as the Georgia Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the state's law restricting where they may live. The roughly 10,000 sex offenders residing in Georgia had been forbidden to live within 1,000 feet of a school, playground, church, school-bus stop or other places where children might assemble. "It is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without continually being at risk of being ejected," the ruling said.

Volunteer doctors who treat patients at the state Capitol will face increased scrutiny after it was learned that a registered sex offender was twice honored as a "doctor of the day," officials said Friday. Dr. Nilon Tallant, 75, was introduced by lawmakers in 2006 and again in January of this year's legislative session, even though one legislator said he warned others about the physician's past sex offense with a 17-year-old girl in the late 1990s. The Texas Academy of Family Physicians issued a statement Friday about strengthening its screening process.

Dear Ann Landers: The letter from the woman whose son received a stiff prison sentence after confessing to molesting a child hit a nerve. I have worked with adolescent pedophiles and dealt with the problem in my own family. We were lucky, Ann. We discovered our son's first attempted molestation within minutes. He spent a year in intensive treatment and now seems to be growing up normally. There is no guarantee, however, that he won`t have a relapse. We never leave him alone with small children.

A convicted sex offender wanted by the Illinois Department of Corrections for allegedly removing an electronic monitoring bracelet from his ankle was arrested Tuesday at a St. Charles hotel, police said Wednesday. Juan Gonzalez, 35, whose last known address was in Aurora, was arrested by IDOC personnel at Days Inn and was being held at the Joliet Correctional Center, said IDOC spokesman Nic Howell. Aurora police said they plan to question Gonzalez in connection with the Monday burglary of a gas station on the 400 block of East New York Street during which cash and cigarettes valued at $3,475 was taken.

A Lake County grand jury this week indicted a 19-year-old Gurnee man accused of violating a state law forbidding convicted sex offenders from living within 500 feet of a park or playground. Harry W. Ellis, of the 1100 block of North Depot Street, was indicted on one count of residing within 500 feet of Viking Park, according to Matthew Chancey, chief of felony review for the Lake County state's attorney's office. Ellis was convicted in May 1999 of fondling a 14-year-old female student at Warren Township High School, and he was ordered to register as a sex offender, according to Gurnee Police Cmdr.

A jury at the Criminal Courts Building began hearing evidence Tuesday on whether a 46-year-old Skokie man should be kept off the streets despite serving a prison sentence for a series of sexual attacks in the 1970s and 1980s. The Illinois attorney general's office is arguing for a civil commitment of Brad Lieberman under the Sexually Violent Persons Act. He was convicted of seven rapes and was charged in several others. Lieberman's attorneys argue their client successfully completed a 20-year prison sentence in 1999.

Last year after Jeffrey Jewitt had already been convicted several times of exposing himself to young girls or attempting to lure them to his car, he vowed there would be no more victims. "If I were to be stupid enough to go and do anything like what I did before, then I'd be in prison," the convicted sex offender, a pained expression on his broad face, said in an interview in December. "There's no more leeway. There's no more second chances. There's no more forgiveness. " But Jewitt was unable to keep his word, according to Elmwood Park police, who said Thursday that he tried to lure a 12-year-old boy into his car on two separate occasions last week.

A registered sex offender was in DuPage County Jail on Wednesday charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a young girl. Gerard Schlaiss, 50, of the 0-99 block of Park Avenue in Glen Ellyn is accused of inappropriately touching and kissing the girl Monday. Schlaiss was convicted in Lake County in 1990 of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl, according to the Illinois State Police sex offender registry. He was convicted and sentenced to supervision in DuPage County in 2005 for selling tobacco products to minors.

By Gary Marx and David Jackson and Tribune reporters | December 15, 2010

Jeffrey Jewitt's red Nissan Altima slid through the side streets of Chicago's Northwest Side until he spotted his quarry: 11-year-old Crystal Landa walking home alone from St. Constance elementary school. The tree-lined street was empty. Her pink backpack bobbed behind her, and her nose was buried in a book. Jewitt quietly nudged his sedan into an alley a block away, slipped the car back a few feet until it was hidden, and waited. When Crystal reached the alley, his Nissan lurched forward to block her path.

A registered sex offender living in Country Club Hills was ordered held without bail Thursday on charges that he raped a 12-year-old Riverdale girl. Troy Raynell Randle, 34, of the 3900 block of West 169th Street was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault, according to Cook County state's attorney's spokesman Andy Conklin. The girl was walking to a park Tuesday afternoon when Randle approached her near 144th Street and Normal Avenue in Riverdale, officials said. "She ignored him but on her way home from the park, he approached her again," Conklin said.